Renegade Handmade

I started this post a week ago, but I was interrupted so didn’t get to finish it at the time, and then I went away for a few days to Cairns (more about that later once I’ve uploaded the photos!) so hence the long wait for this post!

The heat here is draining my energy at the moment, it’s in the mid-30s Celsius, and combined with the humidity it’s really oppressive. I also just had a wisdom tooth out, so lots of pain and painkillers to distract me further! I therefore don’t quite have the brain power for a proper post, so please do excuse me if this one seems a bit lame!

First up, I decided that my Leftover Granny Stripe is now long enough, and so I can start on the border. I haven’t planned the border much yet, except that I will be doing different colours on different sides to begin with, though I will keep the same colour for the edge-of-the-edge (probably Turquoise!). This is partly because I don’t have enough of most yarn to do a complete round of the blanket. I won’t order any extra yarn for it though, as then it wouldn’t truly be a ‘Leftover’ Granny Blanket, would it?! In truth though, another part of this reason is simply that I fancy keeping the crazy colour thing going into the edging as well… :)

I had pulled the pillows up for this photo to show the whole blanket, but then it made the blanket look short on this photo!

Next up are these cute little cupcakes, how sweet do they look?

Of course you can’t eat them, as they are bath cupcakes (what a fab idea!), and I won’t get to use them at all as they will be gifts for the other people we know here so far. But for now I can just enjoy looking at them :)

We got these little delights at a local handmade market here in Townsville, called Renegade Handmade (what a brilliant name!)

We were on Maggie Island when the market was last held, so I made sure to get to this one, which was the last before Christmas. 

The market is solely for locally handmade goodies by local artisans, and it is curated to ensure that there is a high standard of goods, and a good mix of artefacts on offer. And there really is: everything from ceramics to fabrics, felt to polymer clay, metalwork to woodwork. Things for the home and things to wear, jewellery and jewellery boxes!

These little soaps came from Meg’s Soap Boudoir (Facebook).

Another stall that caught my eye was a fantastic pottery stall called Cadaghi Pottery (Facebook). The stylised animals were so well captured, and I love the characters they have created! 

Photo from Cadaghi
Facebook page

These hanging fruit bats were fabulous, although in our apartment there is nowhere we could put them up...

Photo from Cadaghi
Facebook page

We also loved the hermit crab they had – I didn’t have my camera so I don’t have a shot of it, but we have put in a request for a hermit crab to buy at the next market in February next year, so look out for that coming up!

Another lovely lady I met there was Kylie from Jane Can Sew (Facebook). She makes lovely handmade garments in great prints, and I had been chatting to her a week previously…

I had met her when I was asking about sewing classes. There weren’t any going on (just crochet ones!), but we got chatting about her sewing. One thing led to another, and we also got chatting about the things that I have/can make, which led on to her suggesting that if I fancied selling my stuff, I could go to the market and chat to the organiser, Karissa, about getting involved!

I was very excited about this, and so I put together a small selection of my own work that I still have (as most of my stuff has been for other people!), plus I made a few small new things, and took these samples to the market. I still need to apply to be accepted as a vendor there, but Karissa said that my stuff is good enough, and that the items don’t clash with anything else on offer, so fingers crossed that I can earn some pocket money for the first time in ages!  Hopefully this will work out and I will be writing more about it in a few months' time, and also I will share with you my little makes once I've finished them off properly and taken some pictures :)

I'll also do my best to get my photos together from the recent road trip, so look out for crocodiles next!!